


She Bleeds Like She's Alive

by shealynn88



Category: Elektra (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:54:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shealynn88/pseuds/shealynn88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's taken responsibility for two more lives, now, and she doesn't know why, and the counting isn't going to make her suddenly chaotic life any more orderly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Bleeds Like She's Alive

Everything has been organized for so long, she's not quite sure what to do now that it's unraveling. Now that _she's_ unraveling it.

She still counts things. The fence posts that are scattered haphazardly across the landscape. The side roads that occasionally slant off the dirt track she's racing down. She's taken responsibility for two more lives, now, and she doesn't know why, and the counting isn't going to make her suddenly chaotic life any more orderly. 

Her _sais_ could, but she's beyond the easy solution, now. 

She doesn't know why. She's trying to save them, but she doesn't know _why_.

McCabe meets them in the front yard with a rifle. He hates what she's doing but he's with her anyway, and that's somehow harder to accept than her own betrayal of their shared code.

She's grateful. 

That's hard, too.

"I'm sorry," she says softly, catching him alone in the dining room as he watches the window, rifle in hand.

"I don't understand, E. Why them? Why now?" He's still staring out the window.

She shakes her head. "I don't know. I feel like…like there are pieces of her in me."

He looks back at her and she feels suddenly foolish. She shrugs and moves to leave.

"Elektra."

He says it under his breath, so quietly that she might not have heard it if she wasn't always listening. 

He never says her name.

She turns back. "McCabe." It's not quite a question.

When he touches her arm they both know a line has been crossed. It's a line that she drew a long time ago, and she realizes that it has no meaning now. Everything has changed. 

She looks down at his hand where it rests against her forearm; she's not sure how to feel, what to do. The world slows and she watches him move, millimeter by millimeter; his fingers curl into his palm as he draws away. 

It barely takes an effort to reach out and take his hand before it's fallen more than an inch from her arm.

His eyes are wide—questioning and a little fearful. He doesn’t usually see her move like that, doesn't usually see the depth of her abilities.

Her eyes meet his and the world fades away for a moment, replaced by flashes of black-and-white. McCabe kneeling on the floor, defeated. A katana blade sliding toward him in a perfect arc. The blade shining silver, then red as it reaches its peak.

She's back, suddenly, holding his hand and staring into his face. It's only a matter of time before his eyes darken and the light behind them fades. He's already made the choice.

Tears threaten but she holds them back. He won't welcome them, and they're a sign of weakness she can't afford.

The lines she's spent so long drawing fade in the face of his sacrifice, break against the weight of the person Mark and Abby are making her. 

The person she's letting herself become. 

There's no sense of falling or crossing or wading into dark waters. It feels natural to slide against him. It feels right to open her mouth against his. 

He looks stunned when she opens her eyes, and she can't help but laugh, a throaty little sound that makes him smile softly, and she wonders that she's never seen that expression before. 

Never will again.

She tries not to think about that as she pulls the rifle from his hand and sets it down before slowly pushing his jacket off his shoulders.

She hasn't let herself feel for anyone in a long time. She's not sure if it's better or worse, that this moment with him will be their last. 

Maybe a little of both.

He's gentle in a way that makes her think he's imagined these moments, and that's okay because it feels new to her, like she's just coming alive again after a long sleep.

The new starkness of emotion feels like a wound—shearing through the muscle, deep and clean and brilliantly red. It reassures her that she's alive. She hasn't been sure of that for a long time.

He bleeds his warmth into her through lingering touches on her hips, her thighs, the back of her neck; he infuses her with a humanity she didn't think either of them possessed. He breathes responsibility when they kiss and she tastes the bitterness of loss on his tongue. 

She takes and gives back and tries to say 'thank you' when she moves over him, because no words she can say will ever be enough.

Before they get dressed he kisses her one last time, so gently it feels sacred. 

When she kisses him back, it means goodbye.


End file.
